Bird Flu: A Bird's Eye View

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Bird Flu: A Bird's Eye View

Asian Research

Simon Jarvis

5/15/2006

 

You can hardly pick up a newspaper these days without reading something

about avian influenza or bird flu. No wonder since the deadly strain, the

one that affects people, H5N1 has recently appeared in several European

countries as far west as Italy and Germany and has also now manifested in

Nigeria. Accepting that the spread of the disease in the Far East is due

largely to the poultry industry, much is being made of the role migrating

birds have played in bringing it to the west.

 

However the only cases of H5N1 in Britain were discovered in Taiwanese

mesias which are small colourful soft-billed parrots that share one

characteristic with many popular tropical cage birds such as zebra finches,

parrots and the like in that they are essentially non-migratory. It is

believed that they were originally smuggled out of China, legitimised in

Taiwan and only British quarantine stopped them getting into the pet shops.

 

All the human deaths attributed to bird flu so far have been associated with

the poultry industry. Graham Wynne chief executive of the RSPB points out,

however, that the RSPB know more about the movement of wild birds than any

government knows about the movements of poultry. And its beginning to look

as though the close proximity of people with poultry and birds sold as pets

might be presenting a peril.

 

Clifford Warwick, director of the Bio Veterinary Group states " The most

dangerous place for spreading emergent infections from pet birds to poultry

is a bird market " . On its website policy page the society states that it

" believes the ban on import of wild birds into the EU should be made

permanent because the trade as it is currently practised is not proven to be

sustainable, and places our native wildlife as well as the health of humans

and livestock at risk. "

 

The international trade in wild birds moves these creatures faster than any

feathered wing can with birds being taken to places they would not naturally

fly to. As spring approaches, wild birds are returning to their summer

breeding grounds which means that bird flu is for the present unlikely to

spread further west through migration.

 

The international trade in wild birds has posed public health risks and has

been campaigned against by the RSPB and conservation bodies alike for

decades. The ethical treatment of live birds has been repeatedly scrutinised

by them to reveal that for every bird hopping about in the pet shop, several

others have died untimely deaths during capture, transport and quarantine.

 

Many birds are smuggled into Europe bypassing the quarantine process and

import bans — temporary or otherwise. The Department for Environment, Food

and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), who once considered imported birds as 'high risk'

actually lifted a ban that was in place under pressure from bird traders.

Wild bird trading, for example, resumed in January this year at the

Ribbledale Centre, Clitheroe a venue which is also used as a poultry market

despite the fact that this kind of dual purposing is specifically outlawed

under the Pet Animals act of 1951.

 

DEFRA also manage the quarantine facility in Essex where the infected mesias

were detected. An officially empty facility was then found to contain about

2000 birds. Pulling no punches, Warwick commented that " DEFRA's latest

revision of the facts suggests an institutional flaw in both quarantine

accountability and DEFRA's management of the system. 2000 birds are a lot to

misfile even this figure is uncertain. Many epidemiologists will also be

concerned to note that only five birds were reportedly tested for such an

important disease [bird flu]. " He went on to say, " We also know that these

'sentinel' birds used as an early disease warning mechanism are unreliable.

DEFRA's revelations will do little to raise public or scientific

confidence. "

 

Besides the moral dilemma of trapping and caging wild birds to satisfy our

penchant for them, most of the popular species are easily bred in captivity,

making the exploitation of wild birds seem even more reckless.

 

There is one thread that joins bird flu, BSE, foot and mouth and TB which is

that they are all caused and/or exacerbated by the unnatural movement of

animals with the birds and animals themselves enduring unnecessary

suffering. Examples include not only the millions of tons of poultry which

have been lost to bird flu alone but also less talked about cases such as

the Ostriches slaughtered by machine gun fire in Nigeria and the swans

deaths occurring in several European countries.

 

The tensions of the situation are further expressed in the strong pressure

being placed upon governments by conservation bodies against the culling of

wild birds with the argument that apart from being ineffectual it would

scatter the survivors and disperse bird flu even wider. We cannot stop wild

birds flying around but the control of malpractice and transportation is

something we could tackle. From a bird's eye it looks as though we'd be

doing our feathered friends as well as ourselves a big favour if we did.

 

http://www.asianresearch.org/articles/2858.html